For a moment, many of the men glanced around in confusion. It sounded as though there had been a lot more shooting than there had been. But DeWitt roared at them, and they gathered around him.
In the background crowd half a dozen men—hard-bitten farmers who had been hanging around town—exchanged glances and drifted away.
“Clean up this mess,” DeWitt told them, standing over the bleeding corpse of the squatter Coleman. “I suppose he’s the one who set the fire. Has Folly got it put out?”
Several of the thugs stepped back, looking around. “Folly?” someone said. “I thought he was here with us.”
“Guess he’s still at the fire,” another suggested.
They found Folly Downs an hour later, behind the burned hay barn. He lay face down in the muddy slush churned up by earlier crowds, his body riddled with bullet holes.
It was no casual shooting. It was a methodical execution.Small precise holes decorated the corpse—throat, groin, shoulder, knee, and chest. It was as though each shot had been planned, each bullet intendedto punish before destroying.
An execution ... but there was no trace of the executioner.
“I ain’t goin’ out tonight, Asa,” Kurt Obermire said flatly, his eyes level with the angry glare of Asa Parker. “Billy was right. There’s been somebody trailin’ us since Colorado, and now he’s here!”
Casper Wilkerson hovered nearby, backing him up. The three stood alone, just behind the closed gate of the overland wagon, while yellow-banded vigilantes kept the traffic away from them.
“You’re spooked,” Parker growled. “You’re downrightscared! You can’t even remember to call me Colonel DeWitt, you’re so scared!”
“I ain’t scared!” Obermire said. “But you saw what happened to Folly. That wasn’t any natural shootin’. I got a bad feelin’ that we’re bein’ stalked! And it’s just the three of us here now, with Billy laid up and Tuck with him. I don’t intend to go ridin’ out to let some sniper get me.”
“He might be right, colonel,” Casper said. “We ought to keep close ’til we get to the bottom of this.”
“I’ll send Jackson and Calumet out with the vigilantes,”Obermire stated. “They can handle those Barlows. I say we stay close together for now, and here in town where we can watch one another’s backs.”
“You’re both damn fools,” Parker/DeWitt scoffed. “Whoever killed Folly is gone.”
“We’ll stay, anyway,” Casper said, his thin voice grim and determined, his gaze leveled at DeWitt. “Maybe Kurt’s right, maybe not. But I’d hate to see anybody left all alone with this wagon ... and the money that’s in it. Might be just too much temptationthere.”
DeWitt knew when he was outvoted. “Do Jackson and Calumet know what’s to be done?”
“They can handle a few damn squatters.” Obermirenodded.
“Then send them! But I want that claim cleared ... and I want Billy and Tuck back here as soon as possible.”
“Billy’s stove up bad, Colonel. That bounty man he shot put a bullet into his butt. Tuck’s stayin’ out there with him.”
“Billy and his private business,” DeWitt growled. “Well, get them back as soon as they can come!”
FIFTEEN
“This place is a pure hellhole,” Jubal Mason announcedwhen Brett had joined the brothers at the Paradise Hotel. “I tell you, boys, I seen about enough of it.” Pacing the plank floor, he glanced out of the smudged little window. Beyond, evening light across the bluffs cast a bleak smoky glow over the town of Paradise. Out by the corral, Sam Jackson and the man called Calumet were assembling some of the vigilantes. It looked as if at least twenty riders would be pulling out soon, heading south.
“Obermire’s not goin’,” Jubal growled. “How we gonna get to him ... and those others ... if they stay inside their guard circle?”
“Well, we got one of ‘em, anyway,” Jude said. He cut his eyes toward the somber Brett Archer, who was just shucking his coat. “Nice goin’, Brett.”
Archer frowned. “It wasn’t me,” he said. “Wish it had been, but it wasn’t. I don’t know who killed that son of a bitch. Thought maybe one of you boys got him.”
The three Masons exchanged surprised glances. “You didn’t kill Folly Downs? Then who did?”
“I sure don’t know.”
“Well, how about that fire at the hay barn? Didn’t you set that?”
“It wasn’t me,” Brett repeated. “I was over by Owen’s wagon, trying to get a look inside. Couldn’t get near it, though.”
“Then who did all that? It wasn’t any of us.”
Brett shook his head. “Place like this, it could have been anybody. But I never saw anything quite like it. Did you all see that corpse? That jasper was shot to pieces.”
“Yeah,” Jubal said. “I had a good look. Back home, I’d have said somebody used him for target practice ... with squirrel guns. Those weren’t pistol shots in him. Those bullets were small caliber, high power loads. Like a squirrel rifle. God, back home the law’d have posses out combin’ the country. But all those vigilantes did was drag him off across the creek, along with that feller their boss man shot! They’re both layin’ in the snow out there, waitin’ for somebody to bury ’em. What kind of law is that, anyway?”
“Law?” Brett smiled sourly. “There’s no law here, Jubal. No law at all. Just the criminals in charge, and I’d say they make up near half the population. Did you all see DeWitt gun that settler down out there? That was nothing but cold-bloodedmurder ... with a hidden gun! The settlernever had a chance.”
“I listened around,” Jonah said. “Way I heard it, Obermire’s vigilantes ran that fellow off his land and stole his posts. When he came in to complain, DeWitt shot him. DeWitt carries a .45 in plain sight, but he never touched it. He shot Coleman with a sleeve gun. Like you said, the poor fool didn’t have a chance.”
“No Man’s Land,” Jubal muttered. “No damn wonder it’s called that! This whole place is nothin’ but a hellhole!”
“You been out to the place? How’s MacCallister coming along?”
“He’s on his feet,” Jude said. “I don’t see how, but he’s talkin’ about takin’ a hand at the Barlow place. Swore he’d get a saddle on that big black if it killed him. Maybe it did. We left him there.”
Outside, the light was dimming. It would be dark soon. With a final glance from the window, Jubal put on his coat and hat and drew a yellow scarf from his pocket. With Jude’s help, he fastened it to his lapel.
“I better make tracks if I’m gonna catch up with the vigilantes,” he said. “Wish me luck.”
Jude was fishing out his own yellow banner. “I’ll be along directly. I’ll try to stay back, see if I can find some way to back your play, Jubal.”
“What play?” Jubal frowned. “Nobody we’re after is goin’ out there tonight! Best we can do is maybe even the squatters’ odds a little.”
High clouds hid the stars and a chill wind whined through dark canyons as the Paradise Vigilance Committee picked its way down ragged slopes towardthe bottomlands called Hackberry Meadows. In near-darkness where only the dim glow of snow and caliche ledges gave view, they led their mounts single file and stepped carefully.
The best in the gang at seeing at night, swarthy Calumet and the Kiowa half-breed Osa, led the way, with the outlaw Sam Jackson close behind and the rest following.
Dim points of light glowed faintly a quarter-mile away. In the darkness, from that distance, they couldn’t see the limestone-braced soddy, fenced corral,and pole barn of the Barlow claim. They could barely see the little grove of cottonwoods behind it. They could see the lamplight in the slit windows, and the faint glow atop the low chimney.
It was guidance enough. Some of them had been there before.
“Old man and a brood of grown-up boys,” Jacksontold them when they gathered at the base of the ridge. “There’s some women with ‘em, and a few urchin kids. Hill trash from back east. They had their warning. Now the colonel wants ’em c
leaned out.”
“This the bunch that Palmer’s men tried to drive off last fall?” someone asked. “I heard they put up a hell of a fight. Palmer and three of his boys dead, two more shot up. Then, when they finally took the place, there wasn’t nobody there.”
“Don’t know if it’s the same ones,” Calumet purred. “These Barlows, they’re a whole tribe, not just a family. That Palmer, he said he didn’t know there was so many.”
“Palmer was a fool,” Jackson rumbled. “These are just squatters, no better than any others. This time I don’t want them getting away. We surround them, kill them, and burn the place down. That’ll put an end to that.”
“What about the women?” a man in the ranks asked. “We s’posed to kill them, too? And the kids?”
“That’s what happens to squatters,” Jackson said. In the darkness he couldn’t see faces—only shadows and the pale swatches of their yellow scarves. Most of them he knew, from a season or two of holeing up in the strip. A few others were newcomers that Obermire had recruited into the Vigilance Committee.
“I ain’t gonna be no part of killin’ women an’ kids,” one of the men muttered.
Jackson turned to glare at the man. “That’s up to you,” he said. “Kill ‘em or drive ’em off. They all had their chance to go away. Anybody here think he ain’t got the stomach for this?”
There were no answers. Jackson hadn’t expected any. “Then saddle up,” he ordered. “It’s flat grasslandfrom here. Stay together ‘til we get close, then divide up. Calumet will lead five of you around back, to the trees. I don’t want anybody skinnin’ out of that cabin when we hit it. Keep ’em pinned down inside, and keep your guns pointed at that cabin. Any son of a bitch that gets excited and sends a shot my way is gonna die right then and there. You understandme, Calumet?”
The swarthy gunfighter’s nod was lost in the darkness,but his voice was as soft and cold as a snake’s hiss. “I’ll tend to it personal,” he said.
Halfway across the dark open prairie, the half-breedOsa reined back and fell in beside Jackson. “Somebody back there,” he said, pointing back the way they had come.
“Back where?” Jackson turned, squinting toward the faint line of limestone bluffs behind them. “I don’t see anybody,” he said.
“Was somebody,” Osa said. “See ... look back there.”
Calumet was also looking back. “I see,” he said. “I see yellow, too. He’s ours. Prob’ly stopped to pee.”
Jackson glared at Osa. “You drunk again, Injun? You just get on out there ahead and watch for trouble. If there’s guards out, they’ll be at the barn or the corral, not out on the damned prairie! Now move before I take a boot to your sorry ass.”
A hundred yards from the corral, they could make out the lay of the place. It was quiet, with not even a barking dog to alert the inhabitants. Leotus Barlow had been proud of his dogs—five big mountain hounds that he used for hunting and for herding livestock. All five were gone now. They had disappearedweeks before. Two of them the Barlow boys had found, hanging from ropes in a cottonwood tree. Jackson’s scouts and their rifles had the others, as well as a milk cow and two horses.
Osa rode back again, a shadow in the darkness. “Barn’s empty,” he said. “Nobody at the corral or the sheds. They’re all forted up in the cabin.”
Jackson swung toward the nearest men. “You five,” he said, “you go with Calumet. Get around the far side and spread out. Cover the woods and the breaks. The rest of you, get down. Leave the horses here with two men. The rest of us go in on foot.”
The riders dismounted, drawing rifles and shotgunsfrom their saddle boots. When they were ready, Jackson beckoned. “Let’s go,” he said. “Fast and quiet. Spread out, but not far. Get close. When I hit that door I want lead pourin’ in through the windows.Let’s make this quick and sweet.”
Jean Paul Calumet led his riders along a dry slough, out of sight of the Barlow cabin. Circling around, they made their way into the maze of erosiongullies that zigzagged across the breaks where Little Creek met Wolf Creek. The slope there dipped away gradually, then abruptly, where old floods had shaped the limestone scours.
Where a close-in cliff offered a good view of the squatters’ claim, Calumet paused and signaled in the dark to a rider. “You, Dobie,” he ordered, “you stay here. Anybody comes out, you use your rifle.”
One by one in the darkness they dropped off to take positions where they could see the cabin and barn. Only Calumet and the breed reached the dark grove of leafless cottonwoods. The half-breed Osa had not been assigned a vantage point. Instead, he followed along with Calumet.
The Canadian knew that Osa was no good in a fight. The breed was about as reliable as a snake, and was as likely to turn tail or change sides as to stand and shoot. But he had night eyes, and Calumethad often found him useful.
They picketed their horses in the creek bottom below the house, where they could reach them quickly, and moved into the sparse winter-bare cover of the grove.
Jackson’s strategy for clearing the bottomlands of Barlows was simple and direct. Hit them hard, hit them fast, take them by surprise, and take no prisoners.The Vigilance Committee’s raid was hammer and anvil—an overwhelming strike force from the north to surround and annihilate, and a line of sniperson the south to pick off stragglers.
The little stead showed no sign of alarm as the attackers on foot started across the fields, toward the squat cabin and ramshackle barn. They made their way in silence, the only sounds their footfalls breakingthrough crusted snow to the moist mud beneath.
Two hundred yards to cover. The gang spread and advanced, dark furtive forms crouching in the near-darkness.Ahead of them the only sign of life was the soft muted glow of the cabin’s little windows.
Bodie slipped a rope halter onto his mount and climbed a few feet up the cold crusted face of the gully wall. When he had a good view of the cabin’s windows he found footholds and dug his boots in, checking the loads in his repeating rifle. Secure in his perch, he glanced around, slowly scanning the darkness behind him. He could barely see his horse a few yards away, and beyond it the creekbed and the driftline beyond. It was cold and quiet, and he was alone. Eyes attuned to the Missouri hills, senses honed from his live or die life as a renegade in harsh country, he missed little.
But those eyes, those senses, had never dealt with the reality of ancient Shawnee discipline—called the Warrior’s Way. Fugitive, renegade, and survivor, Bodie was as tough as they come and as wary as a badger. But in his scan of the area behind him he missed the obvious.
Only a few feet away, where the limestone bank jutted outward, the snow crust and shadows combinedto form a shape like that of a man crouching—abig man with moon-blond hair. It was the kind of illusion that darkness lends to shapes and shadows, and even as Bodie noticed it he dismissed it. His hooded eyes flicked past, searching for hiddenmenace, and found none.
Bodie turned back toward the cabin. He never saw the form he had not noticed as it uncoiled silently and launched itself at him.
Falcon MacCallister had never lived among the Shawnee of the eastern forests, but his father had. Jamie Ian MacCallister, some said, could out-Shawneeany Shawnee in the arts of camouflage and misdirection. And Falcon MacCallister had grown up with the lore his father taught him. The real trick of covert approach, he knew, was in the timing of movement and the blending of surroundings. It was the Warrior’s Way. The trick was not to be invisible, but simply not to be noticed.
Bodie didn’t know he had company until that company had him pinned at the base of the limestonerise, helpless and gurgling, with a knife point prodding him under the ear and an arm like an oak bole around his neck.
“I’ve got some questions,” Falcon MacCallister’s low voice purred in his ear. “Now I want some answers.So talk to me, night rider.”
Out in the darkness, across the field, gunshots flashed in the night and their reports crashed and echoed among the breaks. Somebody had opened the ball at the
Barlow claim. A shot, then three more, and the night erupted in chaos. With the crash of gunshots, whine of bullets, and the intermittentscream of richochets singing off into the distance,it sounded as if war had been declared.
In the cottonwoods, Jean Calumet ducked low as a ricochet whined over him, then eased up to where he could see the back side of the spread. There was gunfirewhere there should have been none—over by the barn, near the hay chutes, from the cover of a drifted fence. And from the cabin windows, spits of angry flame shot outward, toward the north field where Jackson’snight riders advanced. They had not reached the cabin, as expected. Someone on the stead had opened fire before the place was surrounded.
“It’s an ambush!” Calumet growled. “Those damn squatters ... I can’t see from here.” He turned his head. “Osa, where are you? Pass the word back down the line, saddle up and follow me.” There was no response. “Osa? Osa! Where’d you go?”
The breed didn’t answer. Cursing, Calumet eased down the embankment and crouched. “Osa! Bring up the horses, damn you!”
Still, there was no answer. Squinting in the murk, Calumet headed downslope, into the trees, then stopped abruptly. Osa sat hunkered against a drift bank, legs crossed, rocking slowly and cradling his head in his hands. Even in the near-darkness, Calumetcould see blood on the Indian’s face.
“What happened here?” he demanded.
Osa just kept rocking, moaning softly, and shaking his head. “Da’huida ...” he groaned. “Ghost. Big ghost. Came right out of the ground.” Dim tracks showed where the breed had been jumped ... by someone not six feet away from him. Osa’s old DragoonColt lay on the ground, where he had dropped it.
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